


Tiger Balm

by clumsygyrl (thegirlthatisclumsy)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Football, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-08
Updated: 2004-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlthatisclumsy/pseuds/clumsygyrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All as a thank you to  for her wonderful <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=deleerium&keyword=Football+deleerium&filter=all">Football Universe</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger Balm

“Motherfuck!” 

Elijah rolled his eyes and pushed Orlando onto his stomach, wincing at the softly muttered curses directed at him, his parentage, and the goddamn stupid road with its stupid rocks and stupid holes. “If you’d listened to me at the quarter mile mark, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Orlando glared at Elijah over his shoulder. “Bite me.” He muttered sullenly. His leg hurt, felt like a hundred midgets were pummeling his calf with sticks. He sucked in a breath the muscle twitching. A thousand midgets with pointy hot sticks, he amended in his head.

“Maybe later.” Elijah started to roll the leg of Orlando’s track pants up examining the purpling bruise. He sucked in a small hiss of breath. It was bad, but not too bad. “You’re lucky that the ground’s still soft from that spring shower we had last week.”

The muffled grumble sounded like Elijah’s name and a curse at the same time. Hard to tell as it was being muttered through a mouthful of down pillow. “My fuckin’ leg hurts, Lij.” He didn’t mean for it to come out as whiney as it did, but too late now. 

Elijah went to the bathroom and returned with a small orange tin. “I know it hurts, but you’re going to have to stop cursing at me. I’m not the one who forced you to run that extra half mile.”

“Quarter mile.” Orlando answered balling the pillow under his chin pout visible even under unruly dark brown curls and Sears brand bed linens. “I’m sorry Lij. It just hurts like a motherfucker.” He sucked in a tiny breath when his calf muscle twinged again.

Elijah’s hands immediately covered the bruised skin. “You would get a charlie horse on top of that thing. Never do anything small do you, Orli?” He mused trying to get Orlando’s foot to flex and work the knot out itself. Elijah winced at the soft exhalation of air, a curse, and his name. “I’m gonna have to massage it. Help the muscles out.”

Orlando just nodded burying his face in the pillow. He was never going to try and show off in front of Elijah again. It only led to pain, and falling, and humiliation. Not necessarily in that order.

“It’s going to hurt for a bit, but this stuff is great.” Elijah said uncapping the octagon shaped tin, the smell cloves and mint and something else, something pungent and rich, quickly permeated the small room. 

“Whabauckithcat?” 

Elijah’s fingers stopped his fingers just as they were about to dip into the orangebrown paste. “What?”

Orlando wrinkled his nose and turned looking at Elijah over his shoulder. “What the fuck is that?”

“Embalming fluid, I thought I’d work from the outside in since you’re obviously lame and will have to be put down.” Elijah dead panned shoving Orlando’s shoulder down. 

“Not funny, shithead.” Orlando muttered into the pillow.

“It’s Tiger Balm. Coach at my old school used to pass it out to all his players. Helped relax muscles. Better than whatever shit liniment you all are using here.” Elijah scooped a dollop of the paste on to his fingertips and rubbed it in his palm before spreading it on Orlando’s calf. “He was an Ex-Marine, the old coach, been all over the place.” He continued to talk working the cream on the outsides of the bruise, the camphor and menthol numbing the pain. “He used to talk about all these amazing things he’d seen, the beaches in Thailand, the Pyrenee’s mountains, and the honest to God pyramids.” His thumbs pressed into the still tight muscle working the tension out, his own shoulders straining and leaning into the movement using his whole body as a weight. Elijah smiled at the grunt of pleasure, Orlando’s breathing evening out and body relaxing. “I’d lived in that town for as long as I could remember, seen all the same kids, grown up hearing the same old gossip. Hearing Coach talk about all the stuff he’d seen and all the stuff he’d done, made leaving there kind of okay.” He stopped massaging, the balm long gone and absorbed into Orlando and his own skin. 

They stayed silent for a long moment. Orlando’s hand moving behind him blindly patting, stroking Elijah’s arm. Elijah smiled softly and patted the side of Orlando’s thigh. “I’m all done, man.” 

Orlando shifted on the mattress with a little experimental wiggle. “Feels better.” He conceded with a sniff.

“You’re such a fuckin’ drama queen.” Elijah said capping the tin and wiping his fingers on the back of Orlando’s shirt with a malicious little grin. 

“Fuck you.” Orlando grumbled flexing his leg and grudgingly, albeit it silently, admitted that the smelly goo had done its work. 

“That an offer or a threat?” Elijah tosses the tin to the bedside table with a smirk, crawling onto the mattress on all fours, knees straddling, but not touching Orlando’s hips. He leaned down and bit Orlando’s shoulder through his shirt, gently then harder at Orlando’s mumbled groan. 

“Lij.” The sound more muffled moan into pale blue sheets than anything else. He shifted against the mattress again blood rushing other places than the abused muscles on his calf.

Elijah grinned mouthing the slightly darkened circle on Orlando’s shirt. “You did tell me to bite you.”  
Orlando groaned again turning and pulling Elijah down. “Come here.”

“What about your leg?” Elijah asked hands already sliding under Orlando’s shirt, thumbs brushing against hardening nipples.

Orlando smirked and leaned up, lips the barest of breaths apart from Elijah’s, “What about it?”

Elijah opened his mouth to say something, but forgot everything else the moment it was swallowed by Orlando’s mouth and his kiss.

Orlando grinned against Elijah’s lips. He’d put up with stupid slippery Texas roads, smelly minty liniment, and even the thousand angry midgets with pointy sticks, as long as he got back to this every time.

**Author's Note:**

> x posted in , , and [here](http://www.livejournal.com/users/deleerium/12063.html?view=418335#t418335).


End file.
